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Real Briefings

Parks and Recreation Committee (City Council Standing Committee)

BEL-CON-PRC-2026-05-11 May 11, 2026 Parks & Recreation Committee City of Bellingham
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The Bellingham City Council's Parks and Recreation Committee met on May 11, 2026, for a single-item session focused entirely on AB 24926, a resolution to adopt the 2026 Parks, Recreation & Open Space Plan (commonly called the PROS Plan). The committee heard an extended staff presentation before taking action to advance the plan to the full Council. The 2026 PROS Plan represents a complete rewrite of the city's parks planning document, developed over the course of 2025 and into 2026. Its central theme — "access to recreation, nature, and play" — signals a deliberate strategic shift from land acquisition and park expansion to stewardship of existing assets, improvement of amenities, and equitable distribution of services across the city. The plan establishes a 20-year vision for the park system. Staff presented strong baseline metrics: 70% of Bellingham residents now live within a 10-minute walk of a park or trail, up from 54% in 2016. The city holds approximately 30 acres of parkland per 1,000 residents, nearly three times the national average, and 85 miles of trails — a figure unmatched in the Pacific Northwest except by Bend, Oregon. Despite this quantitative strength, staff identified a significant gap: Bellingham underperforms compared to peer cities on park amenities, and that gap is the plan's primary focus. The plan calls for adding 30 new trail miles, 120 acres of new open space, four new neighborhood or pocket parks, and one new community park. Specific near-term capital projects highlighted include Salish Landing Park on the waterfront (17 acres, phase one underway), a waterfront skate park in partnership with Public Works, the Cordata Connector Trail, the opening of 100 acres of open space between Northwest and Aldrich on the north side of town, and a Samish Crest trail plan connecting Whatcom Falls Park to Lake Padden. Recreation Division Manager Melissa Bianchi presented striking demand data: over 60% of the city's recreation programs operate at full

**AB 24926 — Resolution Adopting the 2026 Parks, Recreation & Open Space Plan** - **Action:** Committee review and presentation; the agenda bill was placed before the committee for recommended action to advance to the full Council. - **Vote:** Not recorded in available source documents. The transcript captures only the staff presentation portion of the meeting; no motion language, vote count, or outcome is captured in the transcript provided. (See Editor Notes.) - **Staff Recommendation:** Adoption of the resolut…

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**Council Member Edwin H. "Skip" Williams (Chair):** Introduced the item and framed the plan's theme. Noted the plan represents a complete rewrite intended to reflect community needs for the next two decades. No substantive policy positions recorded in available transcript beyond introductory remarks. **Council Member Daniel Hammill:** Present. No statements recorded in available transcript. **Council Member Jace Cotton:** Present. No statements recorded in available transcript. **Council President Hannah Stone:** Presided over the opening of the afternoon committee session and handed off to Chair Williams. No policy statements recorded. **Nicole Oliver (Parks and Recreation Director):** Presented the plan's overview, framing the strategic shift from expansion to stewardship. Emphasized the 10-minute walk access improvement (54% to 70% since 2016), the plan's grounding in the Bellingham Plan, its role in maintaining state grant eligibility, and the plan's theme of equitable access. **Peter Gil (Planning and Development Coordinator):** Provided historical context and community engagement summary. Noted Bellingham's strong quantitative metrics on pa…
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**Nicole Oliver, on the plan's strategic shift:** "This plan is shifting the focus from expansion to stewardship, improving and maintaining existing parks and facilities while strategically adding new parkland, trails, and open space." **Nicole Oliver, on access improvements:** "70% of our residents now live within a 10-minute walk of a park or a trail, up from 54% in 2016. It's a pretty big change." **Peter Gil, on Bellingham's park identity:** "Whether you grew up here or you moved here f…
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- **Full City Council consideration of AB 24926** (resolution adopting the 2026 PROS Plan): The plan will advance from committee to the full Council for a vote. Date not specified in available source documents. - **East Bakerview Neighborhood Park naming:** Currently open for public input on Engage Bellingham. Master plan finalization expected in the next couple of months. - **Salish Landing Park Phase 1:** Construction underway in conjunction with waterfront cleanup. No specific completion date cited. - **Happy Valley Neighborhood Park playground replacement:** Next in the department's playground replacement queue; access improvements also planned. - **Waterfront skate park:** Design, funding, and development in partnership with Public Works. No timeline specified. - **Lee Memorial Park:** Master planni…

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Before this meeting, the 2026 Parks, Recreation & Open Space Plan was a staff-developed document that had received recommendations from the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board (April 8) and Planning Commission review (April 23), but had not yet been reviewed by elected officials. After this meeting, the Parks and Recreation Committee has reviewed the plan and heard formal staff presentations covering the full scope of the document — including the strategic shift to stewardship, service standards, proposed projects, recreation demand data, operations priorities, and funding framework. The plan now moves forward to the full C…
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--- ## Meeting Overview On the afternoon of May 11, 2026, the Bellingham City Council's Parks and Recreation Committee convened in Council Chambers at City Hall on Lottie Street, taking up a single item of substantial civic importance: a resolution to adopt the 2026 Parks, Recreation & Open Space Plan — known informally as the PROS Plan. The committee was chaired by Council Member Edwin "Skip" Williams, joined by Council Members Daniel Hammill and Jace Cotton. Council President Hannah Stone presided over the broader afternoon committee session and briefly introduced the Parks and Recreation Committee before handing off to Williams. This was not a contentious or divided meeting. There were no dissenting voices, no heated debate, and no public comment period — consistent with the rules governing standing committee sessions. What it was, instead, was a thorough and substantive staff presentation: a room full of city professionals walking elected officials through more than a year of planning work and thousands of community conversations, laying out a 20-year roadmap for how Bellingham intends to care for, expand, and make equitable its parks, trails, open spaces, and recreation programs. The stakes, in their own quiet way, were considerable. The PROS Plan is not just a vision document. It determines which projects get funded, which neighborhoods get new parks, how trails get prioritized, and whether a long-sought community recreation center ever gets built. Adopting it — or not — shapes the daily lives of Bellingham residents for two decades. --- ## The 2026 Parks, Recreation & Open Space Plan Council Member Williams opened the committee meeting with an orientation. Parks and recreation department staff had been working on updating the plan "since the beginning of 2025," he explained, and the result was "a complete rewrite intended to reflect the needs of the community for the next two decades." The plan's organizing theme — the words that run through every chapter and shaped how staff approached every tradeoff — is "access to recreation, nature, and play." Before the vote, staff walked the committee through the plan in depth. Williams introduced five presenters: Nicole Oliver, Parks and Recreation Director; Peter Gil, Planning and Development Coordinator; Lane Potter, Parks Design and Development Manager; Melissa Bianone, Recreation Division Manager; and Steve Janiski, Parks Operations Manager. **Nicole Oliver: The Overarching Vision** Oliver led o…
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### Meeting Overview The Bellingham City Council Parks and Recreation Committee met on May 11, 2026, at approximately 2:55 PM. The committee, chaired by Council Member Edwin H. "Skip" Williams and joined by Council Members Daniel Hammill and Jace Cotton, took up a single agenda item: a resolution to adopt the 2026 Parks, Recreation & Open Space Plan (commonly called the PROS Plan). Staff from the Parks and Recreation Department gave an extensive multi-part presentation covering the plan's vision, public engagement process, service standards, specific projects, and funding framework. ### Key Terms and Concepts **PROS Plan (Parks, Recreation & Open Space Plan):** A long-range planning document that establishes priorities, standards, and projects for Bellingham's parks system. The 2026 version is a complete rewrite intended to guide the city for the next 20 years. **20-Year Vision:** The PROS Plan is structured around a 20-year planning horizon, meaning its goals and projects are intended to guide decisions from roughly 2026 through 2045. **Level of Service Standard:** A benchmark that defines the minimum acceptable quality or quantity of a public service. For parks, Bellingham's standard is that residents should be able to reach a park or trail within a 10-minute walk. **Stewardship (vs. Expansion):** A deliberate shift in emphasis in the new plan. Rather than primarily acquiring new land, the plan prioritizes maintaining, improving, and activating existing parks and facilities before seeking growth. **Capital Improvement Plan (CIP):** The city's multi-year plan for major infrastructure investments. The PROS Plan is implemented through the CIP; projects identified in the PROS Plan compete for funding in the annual capital budget. **Six-Year Plan / 20-Year Plan:** The PROS Plan contains both a near-term six-year list of priority projects (aligned with capital budgeting) and a longer 20-year aspirational list. Projects move between these tiers based on funding, need, and opportunity. **Cost Recovery:** A financial management approach in recreation programs that seeks to recoup a portion of program costs through fees. The level of cost recovery is calibrated to the degree of public ("common good") vs. individual benefit a program provides. **Impact Fees:** Charges assessed to new development to help pay for the parks infrastructure needed to serve population growth. The PROS Plan's funding chart distinguishes between growth-related costs (funded partly by impact fees) and maintenance/repair costs (funded by other sources). **Condition Assessment:** A systematic survey of existing park facilities to document their physical state. The Parks Department conducted a condition assessment as part of developing the 2026 PROS Plan to establish a baseline for maintenance and capital planning. **Pocket Park / Neighborhood Park / Community Park:** Different scales of parks. Pocket parks are the smallest, serving immediate neighbors. Neighborhood parks serve a broader residential area. Community parks serve a larger portion of the city and typically offer more amenities. ### Key People at This Meeting | Name | Role / Affiliation | |---|---| | Edwin H. "Skip" Williams | Council Member, Parks and Recreation Committee Chair | | Daniel Hammill | Council Member, Committee Member | | Jace Cotton | Council Member, Committee Member | | Hannah Stone | Council President (introduced the committee meeting) | | Nicole Oliver | Parks and Recreation Direc…
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Parks & Recreation Land Use & Planning Government Operations AB 24926 Bellingham Parks Recreation Bellingham Public Library Engage Bellingham Greenways Advisory Committee Parks Recreation Advisory Board Planning Commission Public Works Dan Hammill Hannah Stone Jace Cotton Lane Potter Melissa Bianchi Nicole Oliver Peter Gil Skip Williams Steve Janiszewski Accessibility Aquatics Budget Finance Capital Improvement Community Gardens Community Recreation Center Comprehensive Plan Cost Recovery Cricket Disc Golf Environmental Equity Inclusion Greenways Infrastructure Land Use Policy Open Space Parks Recreation Parks Stewardship Public Safety Skate Parks Sports Courts Street Trees Trail Connectivity Volleyball Water Resources Wayfinding